Legal system reform: New work in Kerala

The High Court of Kerala has begun important improvements

The judicial branch is fundamental to a good society. The promise of liberal democracy is predicated upon a well-functioning judiciary, to ensure that competition between parties is free of coercion. The promise of a market economy requires a well-functioning judiciary, to make contracting work, to limit state power, and to ensure that competition between firms is free of coercion. There is widespread discomfort with the Indian judiciary on the three dimensions of correctness, predictability, and speed.

Improving the legal system is a complex journey of political economy, consultation, and an operations research perspective applied to data.

There are beneficiaries of the legacy system and they will look askance at some important reforms. Nobody knows the right answers; we have to cross the river by feeling the stones, in a process of discovery. Many experiments are required in finding the right answers (which will of course vary, depending on the context). Many conjectures about process modification, imagined by practitioners and thinkers, will prove to be wrong. Business process reengineering in the legal system is hard just as it is in the private sector.

In fact, it's harder because there are no competitors and no measures like profit or stock price.

Computer technology can help in improving the workings of courts, as it does with all manner of service-sector organisations. The first part of this journey is something that has been seen in numerous firms in India. Enterprise information-technology (IT) systems give control to the leadership about the nature of the de facto front line process. Even if the early systems merely replicate the traditional ways, the rails of the enterprise IT system are the foundation for deeper process transformation.